Dream Interpretation, Therapy, Transformation

Day 15: Being Attracted to the Difficult Thing

O SON OF MAN! If adversity befall thee not in My path, how canst thou walk in the ways of them that are content with My pleasure? If trials afflict thee not in thy longing to meet Me, how wilt thou attain the light in thy love for My beauty? Baha’u’llah

The other day I was working with someone in a counseling session. She was telling me a dream that she had sent me that was filled with fearful images including being threatened by someone throwing a snake at her. When she was finished, she said, “That was a good one.” I told her that that was something I would say. Very few people encounter and internal state of immense fear and then have positive energy toward working on it. Usually when people have fear, they tend to do everything they can to not have to transform it.

Within the confines of doing dream work or change work fear is not seen as a negative even though it is felt that way in the body. In actuality fear only becomes a negative when it is present in your everyday waking life. When you are involved in the process of changing it, it is a positive thing. In fact it is hard to imagine, although it is possible, to do significant change work without a large dose of a fear-related emotion. Fear is good because it gives you the script through which to get the positive energy on the other end. A dream with a great deal of fear in it is even better because it is like a spiritual guide to where you want to go.

Facing a large fear is like training on hills. Hill work is a lot more challenging than running on a flat surface because every step up is worth two or three on the flat.

No human being on the planet is completely free of fear so when we have them, the best attitude toward them is being able to look forward to working on them. You can look forward to transforming a fear in same way that you look forward to taking a holiday. Every time you make progress on the fear it brings more positive energy into your life. It doesn’t matter how long it takes to overcome a fear because some fears are pretty complex and built with a lot of life experience. Your soul becomes fitter every time you look into the ego, see the dark places, then change them to light.

Today I am having a uniquely Malaysian experience. Last night we had some guests at our house that left large piles of dishes. I was so delighted at seeing the dishes because today is the day our maid is supposed to come and clean our house. However, we found out a little while ago that she is not coming. Now the mountain in the kitchen is mine to tackle. So the challenge for me is to to be able to think about it in a positive way. This is where the rubber really hits the road.

Having a positive attitude toward overcoming fear is an absolute necessity to a life of change, but some fears can be so crippling that you need a lot of help in overcoming them especially when you have a history of alcohol-related abuse and other abuse in your past. You can still have a positive attitude about facing the fears. You just need the right avenues for help.

The work for today is do the thing you least want to do, but have a positive attitude doing it.